Protect What You’ve Built: The Smart Way to Integrate Legal, Tax & Business Planning

What if I told you that your business could be one bad day away from losing everything and you wouldn't even see it coming? That's what happens when small business owners trust that their LLC or their corporation is enough protection while their attorney, their CPA, and their financial advisor are All rowing in different directions. Well, that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. Of course, this is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experience that your customers and your employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And I'm so happy that you're here with us today because my guest is Attorney and CPA Chris Papin. And today, we're putting a spotlight on how business owners can protect what they've built by aligning their legal, tax, financial strategies to run smarter, safer, and a more profitable business. So, stay with us. And please, if you know somebody who could use this episode, Please make sure that you share it with them. Knowledge is power. But man, only if we share it. So, I know that in your circle of friends, you probably have somebody who might be thinking and struggling along these lines. And this episode can help them. And also, please make sure you subscribe. That's 2 asks. Share it and subscribe. If you subscribe, you'll get notifications every time we bring you fresh new content each and every week. And 2,000 subscribers. We already have 250,000 downloads. So out of that, please make sure you subscribe. It's interesting because you know how every business owner wants to feel safe, like their hard work, their family, and their future is protected. And yet, most are sitting on a ticking time bomb that they don't even know exists. Because here's the truth. Your CPA doesn't talk to your lawyer. Your lawyer doesn't talk to your advisors. Nobody's talking to the marketing or HR. People seem to be on their own little islands and you're left holding the bag when something goes sideways. So that brings me to our Question of the Day. So, what would happen to your business and your family if you get hit with a lawsuit, or an audit, or my goodness, so many different things? If this question hits close to home and you've just had like a palpitation in your heart just now, then you're in the right place. Drop your comments. Drop your questions below in the comments here. It's nice to see when we do have people on who are giving comments. So, welcome to The Power of Excel. Good Vibes, thank you for coming in and popping your head in on the show. Love to have you around. But go ahead, share your comments, share your questions. We're here to answer them and we're here to be of service. As I mentioned, my guest today is the one and only Chris Pappan, known to many as Coach Pappan.

Hi!

Chris is both an attorney and a Certified Public Accountant. because he's an underachiever. A rare double threat who sees the whole picture of your business and family finances. He's the founder of Papin Law PLLC and Papin CPA PLLC in Edmond, Oklahoma. And he's been recognized in so many different aspects through the Oklahoma Society of CPAs as a Trailblazer, the OKC Biz 40 Under 40, and received the AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the highest possible in legal ethics and ability. So, he is somebody that you want to hang your hat next to anywhere. They say, make sure that you hang out with 5 people smarter than you. Well, Chris is one of those. His firms have racked up awards from Thomson Reuters, mycpe.com, and Forbes 2025 Best in State CPAs. So, he is no slouch. And when he's not untangling complex business structures, He's coaching soccer because whether it's business or sports, he's all about building winning teams. Chris, welcome to the show! It's so great to have you.

Marc, I'm just going to let you keep talking about me. This feels pretty good.

Thank you. It's my pleasure. Hey, so let's start off a little bit about digging a little bit deeper into how you serve your clients. Who are your clients and how do you serve them?

Yeah, the elevator speech that we like to give people is we're generally speaking with small businesses and small business owners. They're in lots of different phases. They may be in brand new startup mode, never created an entity. They could be in scenarios where there's an inflection point, like my taxes are too much or something went wrong or I'm hiring a key employee. Sometimes it's just a function of, you know, hey, my neighbor told me I needed to do some things and I don't know how to do them. But sitting kind of in that board of directors seat with folks, helping them reason through, and then being that expert where most business owners see 1 or 2 businesses throughout their lives, where we've got a roster of 400 or so that we're working with every year, all the time, in lots of different ways. So, there's good perspective we can lend to help folks out.

It's interesting because, you know, just before we went live, we were talking about how people force themselves into their own little bubbles. They're so ingrained into their business each and every day. And it's precious few people will lift their head up to see what's outside their front doors, let alone be able to kind of tap into the brilliance of people like yourselves who have multi-industry, multi-awareness of small businesses across who could really lend a really valuable insight.

Yeah, it's especially in today's on-demand info world. You can get a lot of good advice at your fingertips any given day of the week. What you do with it, how that weaves with other advice and everything else is really where I think folks get lost.

Mm-hmm.

And you, I mean, you started this, info is key and it comes at a premium and it's hard to figure out all those different pieces every single day. And most business owners are really good at their profession, not all the other ones.

Well, and it reminds me of a metaphor of if you wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, you could go online and you could find, oh, I can get these kinds of chocolate chips and go on to another site and go, oh, here's some flour I can use. And oh, here's some baking powder. And then, you try to figure out how to put it all together and make the worst cookies ever until you have a proper recipe. And that's usually— you usually hang your hat on One recipe, not a whole bunch of people telling you everything all at once.

Well, and there's experience in there. Like my mother and grandmother were really good cooks. And a lot of that came with the fact that as they went, they could see, taste, feel whatever was going on and adapt. That experience element is key.

Yeah. So, Power of Excel, do you have an online coach? How important is it to start looking forward and finding resources online? In order to support your business? And how viable is it to do it online versus an in-person coach in your market? That sort of thing.

I'm gonna answer this with a little bit of the attorney in me, like define online coach for a minute. I mean this with love and spirit. But different personalities need different engagement and interaction.

Yes.

We've got tons of businesses that we represent outside of the state of Oklahoma, and I've never been face-to-face with them. I also have several businesses that choose me because I'm down the street. There's an element of face-to-face that they perceive is more important than some of the remote elements that they've experienced. And I think different businesses in different life cycles. Also, you know, when you're in startup, it's a little bit easier to kind of piece info together because you have a little bit more time. And sometimes when businesses are exiting, they want a local broker, but that local broker doesn't have the breadth of a nationwide stretch. So, you know, it all depends. And that's kind of why I start with the question of, well, define what you want coached up.

Yes. And so, that brings a perfect point in that we are all in different seasons. And just because something worked for one person, even if it's a personal referral, it has to be something specific to our immediate needs and our future needs as we evolve. And it's not a one coach fits all either.

No, personality matters a ton to me. What's funny is in law school, we tease all the time like, you go to law school and then you meet somebody out and about and you're like, yeah, you're a lawyer, aren't you? Because we think the same, we behave the same, we've been trained in a similar way.

Right.

That does not mean that we communicate to laypeople very well. Like doctors sometimes speak medical and you're going, what did you just say to me?

Yeah.

So there's a, there's a time and a place. I tell people a lot of times, like, my brand of humor is not always the best because sometimes I'm like, hey, remember 18 months ago? When I told you, yeah, well, I told you so 18 months ago. And people sometimes don't like that. But I am trying to create levity in the scenario. But it hits hard when you're the guy writing the check or faced with the tough decision or lawsuit. And it's a different brand for different people. But you're spot on. You got to find what works for you.

So, so let's, let's dive into what, what we're here to do. I've known lots of business owners. You've mentioned some. You have startups. You have people who are looking to exit their business. A lot of times, small business owners, they're in an imaginary world where it's like, I'm going to exit my business. I think next year I'll sell. And it's like, oh, you got to give your head a shake. Why are so many business owners leaving themselves exposed to the various liabilities within their businesses without even realizing it?

You answered it already. They don't realize it. The business land is very complex, and an LLC is a great step in the right direction. But if you fail to maintain that LLC properly, you don't treat it like a proper entity, a judge will not treat it like a proper entity.

Right.

So the way I try to get this across to small business owners is most of the time we as human beings try to think about things in the light most favorable to Summary judgment is a tool for the legal process, but summary judgment looks at things in the light most favorable to the opposing side. So, if you want to survive summary judgment, you've got to look good even in the worst of scenarios.

So, let's talk a little bit because this is aimed at small business owners and entrepreneurs. Let's define the difference between having an LLC or in Canada, a corporation.

Sure.

And being an owner-operator or even a partnership. Can we just define very quickly what those elements are?

Yeah. So, I'm going to do this in 2.5 different ways is the way I'll say it. It's actually 2, but there's a little overlap. So, you have disregarded entities as one, just a person that goes to work. Maybe a Schedule C sole proprietorship. There's lots of different ways. You don't have to do anything. You can just start working tomorrow. A partnership is more than one. Then you have things that you file with your state or local government agencies where you create an entity like an LLC or a corporation that stands separate and distinct from you as the individual. So filing the entity is step 1 in the process. Of course, you have to maintain the entity. You have to hold yourself out as appropriately. You introduced me as Papin Law PLLC. I make it very important that it is PLLC. I have a professional entity that operates my law firm, my CPA firm, not me, the individual, all the time. And I think that's where some of the distinctions go awry. Then it gets super complex because there's tax elections that layer over the top of that. And a partnership for tax purposes can be something different for legal purposes. And understanding both sides is sometimes confusing.

So I do know that a lot of people think, I'll just form a corporation, I'll get an LLC. Because then, it'll take all the liability off me. And I'll guarantee that I personally will not suffer in case of lawsuits, or litigation, or any government stuff. Is that a myth?

Kind of. It depends. A good attorney is always going to give you an it depends answer. So, in its essence, The entities can be created to help deaden the blow. It's never going to erase things 100% because you as the business owner are the shareholder. Somebody has to have something at stake. Where there's risk, there is also reward. Or perhaps where there is reward, there is also risk. So I think folks have to think their way through that. But real easy example, brand new business, you create an entity, you have an entity, you go to the bank and get a loan. What's the first thing they're going to make you do? They're going to make you sign with a personal guarantee. They don't want a brand new entity to guarantee. They want you because you have a lifetime. Even if your business fails, you can probably go to work and still pay off the loan. So, there's a lot of contractual things that creep in that kind of destroy this, oh, I've got an entity, everything's fine myth.

And so, how do they become aware? Because I'm afraid that probably most people become aware of that when Something bad happens and they, they go, but I thought I was okay.

If you hired an attorney to create your entity, they handed you some version of a packet after the entity was formed. Start by reading that because most of us will put stuff in writing to kind of help there. And yes, I tease at this a little bit, but a lot of people, oh yeah, I saw that. But it tells you that you need to have proper insurance. It tells you you need to maintain separate accountings and different accounts, how to hold yourself out, how to title documents. We run into this all the time in the medical profession. The junior doctor's name is on the loan because they were the person that was present when the Patterson rep was there to sell them the new piece of equipment. It's not in the name of the business entity. Well, guess who's going to pay for that loan whenever it defaults? So It's all kinds of this little stuff where I think we do what's easy for us because we're busy, when in fact we need to think through each of these steps with intentionality.

Right.

In a lot of instances, people don't care that they're the personal guarantor. I need a credit card. I'll personally guarantee the card. I know it'll get paid off, so who cares? And in reality, it doesn't matter until it goes wrong.

But that's—

we don't know when it's going wrong. We don't know when those problems are going to play out.

And it's interesting because I like that you use the word intentionality because all too often, people will deal with a brand new supplier. They'll put the invoice under the name of Joe Blow, not the company name. And they'll leave off. They might even leave off things like the billing address on invoices and stuff. Are there any warning signs that a business might be at risk because They're not being intentional?

From an accounting standpoint, I would say look at a QuickBooks file or look at a bank account and immediately you will know, like those of us that are kind of in financial lands. But I'm having a little fun with you here. But have you ever gone to the store and accidentally had the wrong card and had to use that card to check out?

Yes.

Happens all the time, right?

Yeah.

What you do next matters. But you can't pay your mortgage and you can't commingle all the finances. So, kind of going back to your question, how do you know you're at risk? Most people do what's easy. Oh, I'm just going to do this this time because if— there should be a little bit of pain. There should be some moments where you got to go, hang on, which card should I use here? Wait, I have to— what do you mean I have to check out twice? Why can't I just— there's lots of ways to fix it. But are you doing those tedious, time-consuming, dotting the i's, crossing the t's type of compliance things?

Right.

The one that I would throw out to the audience right now is anybody that's listening or anybody that's in the business space, when was the last time you reviewed your corporate documents? Do you even know where they are? Do you have an operating agreement or corporate bylaws?

Yeah.

Awkward pause there, right?

Good question. Please stay tuned. We're here to help serve you. Don't run away looking for it now. But you're absolutely right. It's because it becomes one of those things like I work with franchisors and like, when was the last time you pulled out your franchise agreement to your franchise? And they go, I signed it like 8 years ago. I haven't looked at it since. It's like, but these are your operating— like these are your guiding principles for the operation of what you're doing. All the frustration you're feeling is averted because if you're aware of what's in your franchise agreement, even in your leases, like all those, there's so many different things in there that will help you alleviate the sleepless nights, the worry and wonder, and be able to help you answer your questions much, much faster than just trying to wallow because you've forgotten, oh yeah, I have a franchise agreement somewhere.

Well, you mentioned leases. And you know, this is a freebie. Do you have your lease renewal calendared? And do you have your lease renewal notification period calendared?

Well ahead.

I talk with business owners every day. They're going, oh, it renews sometime in 2028. That is not the answer I am looking for. And if you don't, if you can't answer some of those questions, Unless your landlord's your buddy or a neighbor or something along those lines, you better be able to, because if you miss the notice period, you're locked in.

Yeah.

Or perhaps you're on your tail. They're moving somebody else in because you've got an option to renew.

So another quick win. How, how much leeway should they be putting on their calendar between the expiration of their lease to a notification that gives them plenty of time to deal with whatever they need to deal with?

Yes, 6 to 8 months is the rule of thumb. The best advice I can give is how long did it take you to negotiate your initial lease? That's probably the amount of time you need to renegotiate a renewal.

There you go. So, there's another freebie. If you're tuned in, that's high value right there. This idea that when people go to their CPA, when they go to their lawyers, when they go to financial advice and other experts for their business, a lot of these experts are kind of working in their own realm. And they might like a CPA might say, well, okay, yeah, you can just talk to your lawyer about the franchise agreement. And the lawyer might turn around and go, oh, just talk to your CPA. What is the damage with all these barriers being put up because you have all these people in silos?

I think first is time. You know, one of the things I despise is managing calendars. We have online calendaring. It shouldn't be hard. I realize that, you know, getting everybody to kind of line up in those spaces, you have to take the time to do all of that. But frequently when you've got busy person A, busy person B, and busy person C, there is no calendar slot that's open.

Right.

So, then what? And I would challenge that your professionals are not employed to figure out when you are available. That's not their job.

Or how each of them are available even.

Correct.

Yeah.

So, what I experienced with most business owners is, oh, I'm going to let the technical dorks figure that out and I'm going to go do my thing. Well, we can figure everything out on your behalf, but we can't sign on the dotted line. And I don't mean to be a jerk but I don't carry any equity in your business. Why would I take on the burden, the risk, the frustration that you have chosen is not a priority for you?

There's also that aspect, the counsel aspect of it all. Like it's one thing to say, here are my documents, Mr. CPA, please do my tax filing and I'll come in and sign it when you're done. It's completely different to be able to have a relationship with these experts to be able to help you, coach you through your business. to be an early warning system for you, to be kind of that lighthouse in the storm, if you will.

And I'm going to go backwards and go forwards at the same time. I know it's going to feel a little weird. But assuming you get everybody in the room, you're going to get different perspectives. So, whatever this document might be, the attorneys are paid to do a certain thing with that document. The accountants are paid to do something different with the document. What if those compete with one another? Who's going to fix that?

Can you give me an example of what you mean by that? Because from an esoterical, I understand it. But maybe, can you paint a picture for us?

So, in an ideal scenario, the business owners will do everything in advance. In reality, we started our business on July 1st. We need to put an agreement together going back to July 1st. That says A, B, and C. This is how we're going to operate our business. Everyone's in agreement. That's what the intent of the parties was. We just did not document it until after the fact. So effective July first, we signed dated October eighth. There's no harm in that. What if the accounting doesn't reflect that? What if there's a scenario where on the accountant side they're saying well. We put person A and B on the payroll, but we didn't put person C on the payroll because we thought they were an owner, but now they're not an owner, so we're going to have to 1099 them. But really, they shouldn't be a 1099. Do we need to go back and pay back taxes plus penalty plus interest? What do we do here? So getting those things lined up to where they're actually effective for everybody involved and meet the expectations. Is incredibly important. I've watched businesses do exactly this and say, you know what, we don't care, just send them a 1099. Guess what? When you get audited, whether it's IRS, OTC, state government, Department of Labor, employment commissions, insurance audits, what they see is you didn't do it right. That is risk to us. Because there is risk, you owe me money. Because I took the easy path, I pay more money.

As opposed to— would it be fair to say that if you led with curiosity instead of saying, let's just go with a 1099, we say, what would happen if I went with a 1099 and use the counsel?

What the reality of what I run into is we choose one path like, hey, the attorney's already drafted the agreement. We don't want to spend money on doing it again. So, the accountants are handcuffed. The only option I have is a 1099. Either disallow the deduction or 1099. Hands are cuffed. I can't really manipulate it in a different way. I can't make it an owner's distribution if they're not an owner.

Right.

So there's always a give and take. Now, to, to your, to your question, I think yes, you're right on. We should be a little bit inquisitive about some of these things. And really, the scenario should have been let's frame out an agreement, not sign it, get feedback from the different constituents, make sure that it meets everybody's objectives. And this is where, if I'm your attorney or your CPA, or ideally both— I've worked with a, with a firm in Kansas City where I went through a whole agreement, then went to them before I took it to the clients and said, is this commercially viable? Does it line up with the accounting? Do these streams of income have a place to be supported in the math? Because I couldn't see the financial statements, whereas a lot of attorneys would have drafted the agreements and figured it out. So, there was a little back and forth to get that ironed out properly, but we got there. And that power of collaboration, I think, is key.

I'd like to jump into some theories, some practices, some philosophy around how to make this smoother for these entrepreneurs. And we'll get to that right after this.

When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with the new book Lights!

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Buy Lights! Welcome back! I am speaking with Chris Papin. Chris, you have an upcoming book as well, 168 Hours. Tell us a little bit about it.

168 Hours.

Tell us a little bit about it, what it's all about.

Guess how many hours are in any given week? 168.

168 hours. So, we're starting to sound like a Broadway show. 168 hours, 300 minutes. Go ahead.

Oh, we've got to have fun with these things. And the premise of it is all business owners have the exact same amount of time. Some are successful, some are not. All athletes have the exact same amount of time. Some are successful, some are not. There are scenarios where you can work a little harder. There are also scenarios where maybe you can put in a 10-hour day instead of a 9-hour day and outachieve other folks. But at the end of the day, we all have the same set of resources. How you use those resources matters. And we've, we've really tried to structure this in a sense that the book can be kind of a startup or a self-help guide for for folks that are brand new or existing to refine or just develop an infrastructure so that they've got something as that intentional, hey, I've got at least a little bit of a marketing plan, rather than just, I'm going to call my neighbors and see if I can sell them stuff. That, that small intentionality is key. It's, uh, it's been fun to kind of develop because everything in the book is based on truth We've just had to doctor it a little bit to protect confidentiality or any of those things that are kind of important in my land. But every story, every scenario, every tidbit of information is all based on something that happened one day to somebody. And that's where I think the real powerful message lies.

Love that. I, you know, as we're talking about this, I came to realize during the break how strategic all this really is. How important is it when people are doing their business plans, when they're doing their strategy sessions, how important is it to include all these different aspects of the legal, the finance, the like this whole package into a long-term strategy rather than just tripping over it and, okay, just call the lawyer. Okay, just call the accountant when stuff happens.

Yeah. So I'm going to give you 2 good analogies because sometimes when there's too much, people don't get started. And sometimes you do good, or perfect is the enemy of good type scenario. Sometimes you just need to go.

Yeah.

But all said, when you're in a new town, if you're building a new building, you don't just randomly start. You've got a set of plans, you find a map, you have a few benchmarks. And I think people forget to verbalize some of that in the way they got rolling. So having those anchor points and being able to communicate those to other people, especially if you're going to develop out a team, you don't know where you're going if you don't verbalize that. And kind of my dumb dad joke is, if Marc goes north and Chris goes south, we will meet, but one of us is going to go a really long way to get there. And that's probably a waste of time.

There you go. There you go. Yeah. So, when it comes down to kind of the foibles and the challenges that business owners think all the time. And again, most people like I've known welders who they created a welding shop because they love to weld. They weld. That's what they do. But nothing in their experience made them leaders. Nothing made them great at finance, or management, or cost control. Likewise, when I see people opening up restaurants, you're a chef. It's like, yeah, perfect person to open up a restaurant. But again, without having all the different skill sets, there becomes challenges. And then, we end up being super reactive and crisis kills us. Like, it hurts my heart when I think of all the small businesses that went under during COVID because they just weren't prepared for the issue of a major catastrophe happening to their businesses. So ultimately, we have all these people who are great people. They're very inventive. They're risk takers. Can business owners self-diagnose when they're set up and their operation is out of sync?

Wise law school professional and professional ethics once said, you should never represent yourself. You're biased.

There you go.

So no, no person is in the position to properly do an analysis without some version of bias. Can you figure out some of those things? And can you do maybe what I'm going to call good enough?

Sure.

But this is kind of where that, that bringing together of small businesses need the support from folks outside, whether it's just a simple filing of a tax return, or— I mean, you know, everybody thinks of banks and credit cards as kind of third party, but they are essential. You have to have those things in a business. You can't exist without them. I guess you kind of can with cash, but not really in today's business world.

Right.

So, that's where I start to think my way through. People actually have partnerships and in these different places where they can seek advice and ask for guidance. Do they utilize it? Do they see it in that sense? Are they heeding the advice? You know, this is a great place to do it. There's tons and tons and tons and tons of free material. You'll hear something and go, oh, I should go do this. Go execute on that. You don't need somebody else to tell you how to do it if you see the vision. Or, you know, I thought about having an online marketing presence. I don't really know what all that means. So maybe I need to partner with somebody who can help me launch whatever those next steps are because online and internet is not my thing.

Right.

So that you can self-diagnose. Absolutely. But can you self-diagnose and execute on everything internally? Probably not. There's a lot of people that will try, but at what cost? And every business owner I know that did it on their own wanted flexibility in their life too. Then, they got a small business and figured out, I have less flexibility because of the small business. So, you have to strike those balances.

Yeah, it's interesting because as you were saying that, I remember, you know, like even writing my book, right? I wrote the book. I edited my book. But then, it's like, is this good enough? And so, I hired an editor. Because somebody who can interpret the information that's not in my head. And I was amazed to see what came back, like paragraphs or sentences. He says, I don't get where you're going with this. In my mind, when I read it, it was clear. And so, this whole idea you mentioned representing yourself, I have a more— a less scholarly approach. You can't see the label from inside the bottle. You need somebody outside the bottle I see that label. So, you have a theory about the integration advantage. What does it mean to bring all these people together? What does it look like from an operational standpoint?

So, let's first kind of define what I'm getting at. And I'm going to use the professions that I do because that's familiar for me and it's easy for me to tell the story off of.

Sure.

So, if you've got an attorney and a CPA, you've got some insurance counsel and then some financial advice, All underneath one roof, it's relatively easy to communicate one set of goals and objectives. I want to grow my business to have 12 employees and $3 million worth of revenue by 2028. Okay, great. How are we going to do that? Well, I have a marketing plan and a marketing team. Well, we can circle that and kind of identify maybe there's some risks or some conversations we need to— to review to make sure that we're hitting objectives. On the finance side, we're going to look at dollars spent on marketing, make sure it is the juice worth the squeeze here. Is it achieving the objective? But at the end of the day, it's kind of a— if I'm not making any money and I've got to talk to like 7 people to figure it out, what's the first thing that comes to your mind whenever I say professional services? I think a lot of folks worry about the billable hour. So if things aren't going as planned, there's usually not as much money as we hope. Now I'm discouraged from having a conversation with those that are probably going to be the most valuable pieces of input. It starts to compete with itself in that integrated decision-making process. So we try to set it up to where there are certain things that are included inside of a fixed fee where you can kind of speak freely, not fear the billable hour, get a little bit of a scratch of the surface off the top. May not be a deep dive, may not be everything that you wanted, but you can at least figure out, is this a path I want to go down? And I promised fun, dumb analogies, but if you need a truck that is a certain size truck to haul a trailer and you go get a Honda Ridgeline, You've got your truck, but if the trailer's too big and everything else falls apart, you're, you're kind of missing the, the point. And it's the same thing when you go out and try to piecemeal some of the services together. Sometimes you end up with a Honda Ridgeline when really you needed an F-350. So getting those things aligned, especially when you're not the person that really is the expert of what you might need, can be really tough. So, kind of getting ahead of it and getting somebody who's seen it, or at least be in some sort of networking group with other folks. I mean, Marc, you did this in your coaching. And I think the experience that you have with folks when people come together and talk about their hurdles, they learn so much more than just doing it on their own, don't they?

Well, and this is the power behind executive groups like Vistage. In Canada, we have Tech Canada. which is kind of the Vistage spin-off. Being able to bring people from different backgrounds with different experiences so that you can safely be able to bounce ideas off and say, this is what's challenging me. And then, you end up getting different perspectives. And that could be an absolute godsend.

And even if the perspectives don't answer the question, I mean, one of the things I always tease about. But sometimes, I will go to professional deals and I come back and I was like, well, I know I'm not doing it like them and all they did is complain. So, we're good. Maybe that's the golden nugget you need.

Maybe. Yeah, you go to these things. All they're doing is complaining but you seem to be okay. For people who are tuning in who have the multiple advisors, how do they create a means or a medium by which they can have kind of a more integrated service?

I would say ask for it. Just flat say, I'm looking for something that's more inclusive. I don't really know what to ask for. Do you offer that? And then be willing to listen. Most professionals that I talk to struggle with this because clients will come in and say, I just want you to file my tax return. When we file it, then the feedback is, well, why didn't you call me 4 times during the year and give me planning advice? Like, oh, wait a minute. I didn't even know that was something I was supposed to do. So, I think being proactive and giving people some grace if that's what you want. And then, don't be afraid to kind of tease out what that scope is to make sure it meets everybody's expectations.

It does feel a little bit like this is no different than the relationship we're trying to create with our customers. We need to be creating a relationship with our experts, with our advisors.

Yeah.

To be able to have open and transparent conversations. And people can't be afraid to say, oh Marc, you might want to take advantage of this, right? Like a perfect example, I had my mom's house renovated. And we put in a water system. We put in all new plumbing. And they put in a manifold into the house for only— it's only a house with only like a bathtub, a kitchen sink, and a bathroom sink. And it's like when I talked to the plumbers, it was part of the work order. It's like, it seems manifold was an overkill. He goes, yeah, I would have done this. I would have done this. I would have done this. I said, why didn't you say anything? He says, well, it was on the work order.

Yeah.

And it's like, hmm. So that whole thing about, yeah, I want you to file taxes. But being able to ask the question of what kind of relationship do you want to have with us, I think is an important conversation to have as well.

And another one, just a funny little quip, but I get this regularly. Hey, can you please review this agreement and tell me it's good so I can sign it by Friday? Better yet, you're signing it anyway. How about you sign it and I don't take on the risk? What they actually want in that is, can you tell me where the red flags are? But the way it comes out is I need it all done by Friday. Guess what? It's Wednesday, guys. So we have 2 days to achieve something that really needs probably a couple of red lines and 2 or 3 weeks worth of conversation. That's unrealistic. So, you start to get these objective pressures that get in the way. I'm willing to bet in your plumbing scenario, they were focused on, I got to get this done and I got to get this done by. Nobody ever said, hey, is this what's best for the project?

Right. And so, it goes beyond then. I mean, when you have somebody coming up and saying, hey, can you just— I'm sure it's fine. I looked at it. I think it's fine. But can you please just read it over so we can sign it off and send it out by Friday? It's more of— now, it's less strategic and more of a checklist item.

It is very much so. And this is that pressure of getting things done. I don't want to invest the time in it. And I mean sarcastically, if that's what you want, put it in one of the AI tools and don't waste your time on professional fees and let them tell you what to do. Because You're gonna get about as good advice there as you are in the execution of just signing it without marking it up. Yeah, there's risk in any document, and you better damn well know what it is, because if you don't, it's dollars out of your pocket. And if you don't want to take the time to figure it out, cool, accept that risk. Please sign here.

Yeah, but then, but then, you know, it seems, it seems to me that I like— I don't know what, in what condition you would need to have somebody sign it off aside from an notary to notarize something. But this whole idea of just take a look at it and sign off on it so that I know it's good is kind of the wrong questions to even start out with. Like, I mean, that's like saying, here, I made a drawing of a house. Can you please sign off on it because I want to start building it next week?

And I'm kind of adding some effect inside of there to push back a little bit. But what people want is the comfort to know that it was done right. Like, we started this with, hey, I set up an LLC so I don't end up with an unexpected bankruptcy in my life.

Right.

Then do things right to achieve your objective. Don't wish because that's not a plan.

Right. Chris, this is an amazing conversation. Can you let everybody know how they can get a hold of you?

A couple of different ways. You've got firm websites, P-A-P-I-N CPA or pappinlaw.com. And then probably more importantly for the audience is go to my LinkedIn. We push all kinds of free content out, kind of some thought ideas and things like that. It's just my name, Chris Pappin, on LinkedIn.

Okay. When somebody's tuned, like now realizing, you know, maybe they need to start thinking more strategically about all this, what's one question every business owner should be asking their CPA or attorney the very next time that they have a conversation?

I think I would— it's going to be a statement followed by a question. I am open to suggestions and other ways to achieve my objective. What might they be? That should open the door for most professionals to say, well, alternative A is this and alternative B is this. In my world, I usually propose alternative A, B, and C, but we're not talking about C because that's stupid. Just wanted you to know it was an option. But you kind of get the vibe inside of there of sometimes there is no other option because it's a bad scenario. In tax land, if you will, if you're switching over to kind of the finance and accounting side of things, I think being open-minded to achieving one objective 2 or 3 different ways is more important. The question I get from every business owner is, I heard I can depreciate a car. You're not wrong. Did they tell you all the hoops you've got to jump through to do it? What are you talking about? I just want to buy an Escalade for my wife and write it off in my business. How many miles is driven for business? It's for my wife. What are you talking about? I heard on TikTok I can do this. My point is we get fixated on the objective. If we miss the mark, it's either fraud or we've missed the objective. And somewhere in there, I think what they're saying is there are lots of tax planning opportunities on the table. One I heard of was, do you have others that could help me achieve the goal without lying, cheating, or stealing?

Right, right. And, you know, ultimately, I think that's the objective. I think most people want— they're just looking for an advantage. It's like, I have to buy a new car for my new vehicle for my wife. Is there any way I can write it off? Is the question. And then, it becomes a question of, well, maybe we're not going to write off your wife's vehicle. Maybe we can write yours off though.

Right. Or maybe, let's have a bigger conversation about ways to use your wife's vehicle in your business. Because the paradigm now can change. You can use the SUV in your business anytime you want. Is that realistic inside of a lifestyle though? That's where the conversation needs to shift. And you've said it multiple times. But sometimes, the question you ask is not the question you intend.

Right. Well, I just have to do a call out to the audience because as you can tell, Chris and I, we're both on a mission to support leaders just like you. So, if you belong to an organization that could use our help, or you or someone you know, Might be planning something like a leadership retreat or a conference. Drop us a line if you think we could help. We'd love to explore how we could be of service to you and your people. Kris, we're in a world, it seems, of DIY. We have tons of TikToks and stuff all over YouTube and stuff. When people are thinking about this, are there any kind of common template mistakes that you see that cause bigger problems?

So there's, there's a couple of different ones like DIY leases and tax elections and things like that. You can do them. And oftentimes, if you work with the right firms, this is something we pride ourselves in, is if we believe in the business owner and believe they have the ability to execute timely, we'll arm them with the information and let them go do it. We're not going to charge you for doing something we don't need you to do. do. We'll charge you for the advice we give. But where I think things get sideways in this is, let's just take— I, I'm— I sold, or I bought a new house. I'm taking my old house and I'm gonna rent it to family friends. So I'm just gonna go get this lease that I found online. I'll change it to the state of whatever. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. How do you evict them?

Yeah.

What happens when it goes wrong? And I hate being a naysayer, but always start with the worst-case scenario. And if you don't, don't know what to do, that's probably where you need legal advice or accounting advice or professional services. If you know that, if you know how to do an eviction because you worked in property management, move forward, prosper. Maybe you don't need us. Another common one I see is just because someone else is doing it does not mean mean you need to do it. The recipe has to be right. And we started with cookies. To get cookies the right consistency in Florida and in Colorado yield 2 different results. The elevation and the humidity in the air changes that mix. That's my point here. And just because your neighbor did it that way doesn't mean necessarily you should. And probably the one that nobody likes the answer to, but everybody seems to kind of find the answer at the end, lands something like this. I've never had a client tell me, oh my gosh, that tax refund was too big, or, oh my gosh, that life insurance check was too big. Proper planning put you ahead. But I listen to people all the time say, I didn't have enough. I was surprised by the tax liability. All of these surprises typically come from a DIY where you didn't know the variables that were at play. I didn't even know that that was a thing. Oh my gosh, how am I going to dig myself out of this?

So, Chris, you are of the learned medium, the learned population. I came up with a theory and I have yet to test it. I've tried to test against this theory, but I've not been able to find an argument against it. My theory is this. If you start a sentence with I thought, then you were wrong. So, if you start the sentence with, I thought I had a good lease, the mere fact that you just said that means that you were wrong. I thought I could evict them.

Best, best I've got. You're, you're— this is a tough one because I think you've actually stumped me, but the best I've got is the statement of I thought that, if a truthful statement, is actually fact, which means it's correct. It's the best I got, Marc.

But it's still wrong because you're using it to justify. Anyway, hey, so My mom's probably giggling right now because I use that all the time. We use every time we turn around, oh, I thought. I thought, right? I thought. For people, business owners, entrepreneurs, people with families, what are the must-have protections that you think they need to have to safeguard both their business and their personal assets? We hear time and again that people hang way too much of their personal assets on their businesses. What needs to happen in order to change this, this whole environment?

Yeah. So there's got to be a good understanding of what is business and what is personal. That's where you got to start. And when you have commingled assets like a truck, for example, that you use both for business and personal, how do we get that mix together? How do we do the things that actually create that separation we're looking for? Once you kind of have that mix figured out, then I think it's a game of balancing risk against proactive need. You can go insurance poor if you want to insure everything you can, but you can't afford that. So just like life insurance, oftentimes we buy what we can afford under the circumstances. We buy car insurance because it is required. But sometimes people buy the minimum, sometimes people buy more than. It's the same kind of recipe in your business. So the thing that I am going to end with on this question is borrowed concept, but everybody I talked to, I said, if you had a money printing machine, would you insure that machine from damage, theft? Like, of course I would, just like I would my car or anything else. Guess what? You're that money machine. If you're the business owner, you're that money machine for your family. So you have to create an infrastructure where maybe traditional disability insurance is not what I'm talking about here, even though that could be a flavor to insure the money machine. What steps can I take to minimize that risk around the money machine? If you are someone that works with your hands, Perhaps riding dirt bikes is not the greatest idea on earth because if you break a shoulder and you can't weld, we got a problem. So, you have to think through life through a slightly different lens. And I don't think people take the time to kind of frame that thought process out to know where the risks are and where the rewards are. Right.

Again, this I believe needs to happen early on. People need to be sitting down with their experts, with their advisors, And being able to run these scenarios. This has to— I believe this has to be part of the next strategic session that anybody tuning in should be doing. If you're going to be planning for 2026, these need to be part of that conversation.

Gosh darn it. I mean, this is— you're saying it's a perfect time of year because you're going into year-end. People are probably already thinking about what can I do to minimize taxes or set up next year. Just add this to it. It's not that much more of a conversation. Yes, sometimes you're talking about things you don't want to in death and disability. But it's a healthy space to be because all business owners will exit their business. Every single one of us will.

At some point, yep.

Do you want to dictate those terms or do you want them dictated to you?

I love that. That's so powerful. Chris, are there any other cautionaries or pitfalls we should be aware of as we're talking about this idea of amalgamating the communication between all our different experts, being able We need to be highly strategic in what we're doing. Any other cautionaries?

I think the cautionary is really there are some templates out there that are really good and you can follow those templates. So, don't hear me wrong here. But I should put X dollars a year in my 401. Need to have an answer behind it.

Why?

Should I put it in a deferred account? Should I put it in an emergency savings account? Should I invest it in the next? Asset in my business. We need the why behind each of those statements, and sometimes that why needs to be vetted out a little bit. If it's a logical why, it's probably something you should execute on. If it's an emotional why, you probably need to talk your way through it a little bit and make sure that you've got some logical attachments to the emotional I want, I need, something along those lines.

I love that because part of it is, well, that's how we leverage the experts is when we have these emotional attachments to our decisions. We need somebody to test that for us because we think we're making a logical decision. We need somebody to push against it to say that's an emotional decision.

Yeah.

Right? And being able to test it. This has been a fantastic conversation, Chris. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

Get off your tail and do something. It's overwhelming. It's hard. I get it. And, and especially when you're going in compliance with a bunch of legalese that nobody wants to do. But if you do not do it, no one's going to do it for you.

Yeah. And the risk is immense and could be life-shattering. Yeah.

So yeah, there's story after story after story of the legal fees Buried the business, not the judgment.

Wow, really, eh? Not the judgment, the legal fees.

Yeah.

Chris, can you remind everybody one more time how do they get a hold of you?

Yeah, Chris Papin on LinkedIn or Papin CPA or papinlaw.com. P-A-P-I-N.

And Chris, you have a 30-minute discovery, 30-minute a thing that you're willing to give away as well?

We do, yeah. I, I always say I'm looking for, for folks that are willing to talk about kind of businesses. So, if, if you think there's space where we can work together, we do have some initial consultation, no charges. Um, or if you're just a person that's kind of in the space that Marc and I are in and want to connect, we like folks like you. So, feel free to reach out. Happy to meet new people.

We did put the link in the, in the show notes. So, Feel free to check that out. Chris, thank you again. I really appreciate you being here to share your knowledge. Obviously, your passion and your expertise has been brilliant.

I appreciate the opportunity and fun conversation. I could go on and on and on. But people have to do other things today.

It's true, right? I think we could go on and on and on, no problem. And thank you again, Chris. You've been brilliant.

Cheers, my friend!

Do you have any questions about today's episode? Or maybe you're thinking, hey, we could I could really use a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with either Chris or Marc. Well, good news. You can snag a spot on my calendar. And if you hit the link below, you can snag a spot on Chris's calendar as well. Mine is marked with meetwith.marchaine.com. Hit that and you're all set. And as always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure you subscribe to this podcast. Follow me on social media. I'm posting Tons of stuff. And now, make sure that you follow Chris as well. It's been so great having you along for the ride. Thank you for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Bye for now! Bye!